Nazareth Album: “Fool Circle [UK Bonus Tracks]”

Released in 1981, The Fool Circle is not what you would call a typical record from Nazareth. At the time, the band was trying to move in a new direction, a trend that started with Malice in Wonderland a year earlier and continued on through The Catch in 1984. The resulting sound was self-consciously "modern" with keyboards and a throbbing, disco-like rhythm on some songs. As unappealing as this might seem, the album has aged remarkably well. I can say this objectively because I first heard it just about a year ago, so it's not like I have any sort of nostalgic attachment to the record or to the sound of the time. What makes the album great, not surprisingly, are the songs. They are of the sort that stick in your mind and grow on you. In other words, it gets better the more you listen to it.

The Fool Circle has some anti-war songs (Dressed to Kill, Pop the Silos and Another Year) and a couple that deal with politics (Let Me be Your Leader and We Are the People) and several others of a romantic nature. All are good songs. Midnight Eyes is one of the best ballads they've ever recorded, and that's no small compliment seeing as there's a ballad or two on every one of their albums (yes, I have them all). The anti-war and political songs have as much relevance today as ever, seeing as the threat of war and nuclear destruction are still with us and politics hasn't changed. The romantic songs are easy to relate to. Victoria, the last song on the disc, is about that first crush in everyone's past that can't be forgotten. A little Part of You expresses another universal emotion. The bonus tracks are pretty good as well. There are some live tracks and two studio tracks taken from Snaz. I'd have to say that their original cover of Morning Dew from the first, self-titled album is better than the remake included here.

The songs on this one are perhaps a little lighter than on many of Nazareth's records, which might disappoint some. But don't be fooled by the relative lack of searing guitar work and power chords. After you get beyond the pop gloss, you will realize that The Fool Circle is an excellent release that's worth many a listen. So press that "add to shopping cart" button and shell out a few bucks. you might just find yourself digging this one out of the rubble after a nuclear holocaust and listening to it as you die of radiation poisoning. "Sooo sorry now...but that don't change a thing anyhow..."

Anything Nazareth puts out will never fall below 4 stars in my book. Cool album cover but not my first choice on my Nazareth buy list. I do own it but that's before I got "Hair/Dog", "2SX" & "No Mean City". All in all, great rock-n-roll!

This is a little different to a lot of Nazareth material, but is still a worth while album for Nazareth fan's. It Rock's.

This is the disc that lost the band alot of fans at the time. The last one 'malice in wonderland' was a fantastic record; a good balance of hard rock and rock with pop overtones that was a high point. This one which is a decent cd went more for a popish rock feel. That's ok for a hard rock band to do on a few songs on a cd but they must stay true to the overall hard rockin. This is what happens though; it's like nazareths version of kiss's 'unmasked' both are decent pop rock cds but fans weren't happy with them. This one to be fair is far less pure pop than 'unmasked' which is actually a great pop cd. But like that one a hard rock band needs to pump a jammer in the same year they go soft pop or else you risk a defection in fans. However not one song on here is a bad song , some are very good rock songs but the edge is softened and for nazareth to do this and not put out a hard cd; was not a good move. The song 'moonlight eyes' though is hit material. And this band can make some great pop or rock songs and this is one of them. The next cd (2xs) is even more of a change than this one but it's alot better because it has stronger songs even if it is too not a hard rock cd mostly. However you get lots of bonus tracks here and that helps including a new version of "morning dew' At least on my version. there are three versions of this one and I have two of them! So a three star nazareth cd is still better than some bands by far. But the casual buyer needs to grab other cds first before you get into any naz cd from this one to 1989. Those are decent discs but not great like the fantastic hard rock classics the band put out from 1972-80.